Loki 2.0

A WYSIWYG browser-based semantic HTML editor.

Copyright © 2006-2010 Carleton College.

Synopsis

<script src="/path/to/loki/loki.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    // Change all textareas that have the "loki" class to Loki rich-text
    // editors with power-user features:
    Loki.convert_textareas_by_class("loki", {options: "power"});
</script>

About

Loki is a visual (WYSIWYG) HTML editor. Many such editors exist, but Loki is different: it encourages authors to produce semantic HTML. Here's how:

• HTML is cleaned automatically.

  Loki enforces many of HTML's rules on where inline content can go. Inline content that is inserted directly under the body or in a div are wrapped in paragraphs. List items and table cells that have content separated by multiple line breaks have that content split into paragraphs.

  Loki also performs many other cleanups: it greatly reduces the cruft of HTML produced by Microsoft Office products, it formats and indents the HTML it produces, it prevents elements from being nested improperly, and it can restrict which tags and inline CSS styles are permitted.

• Hitting return produces a new paragraph.

  When typing normal text in Loki, hitting the Return key will create a new paragraph instead of a line break. Users must work harder to insert an actual br tag.

• Images must have alternate text.

  Loki ensures that your pages remain accessible to visually-impaired visitors, search engines, and mobile users by requiring that images have alternate text.

• Block quotations are clearly quotations.

  Other editors encourage abuse of the blockquote tag by allowing users to create indentation with it, but Loki's block-quotation tool is clearly labelled with its intended purpose. Loki's indent/outdent tools only function within lists.

• Semantic, accessible use of tables is encouraged.

  Table summaries and headers are included whenever a table is created. Presentational attributes are not included in the markup, and creation of tables with two or more rows and columns is encouraged.

• No frivolous features.

  Loki is largely free of presentational features: users cannot arbitrarily change fonts or colors, and they certainly can't do far more horrible things like insert smilies. If you want such features out of the box, Loki is probably not for you.

Compatibility

Loki is compatible with Internet Explorer ≥ 6 and Mozilla Firefox ≥ 2 (et. al.).

Getting Help

There is a Loki installers Google Group where you can post any questions and be answered by either a developer or another user. Release announcements are also posted to this list.

Installation

If you have downloaded a source-code release of Loki, please read the "building" section below first.

Loki's installation documents are available online at Google Code.

Building

While Loki is distributed with all of its scripts pressed into one JavaScript file, its actual development is spread across many other files in the js/ directory.

Loki uses a custom Python-based build system to produce the single loki.js file. To build a Loki package, run tools/build -v [version], where [version] is whatever you want the Loki version to be. To build just the script file, add the --js-only flag. Run the build script with the --help option for more information.

License

Loki is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL) version 2.1.

See License.txt for the full text of the license under which Loki is distributed.